Part 54 (1/2)

”If it does,” the minister answered, ”he will be the scorn of himself.

Babbie, there is a chance.”

”There is no chance,” she told him. ”I shall be back at the Spittal without any one's knowing of my absence, and when I begin to tell him of you, he will tremble, lest it means my refusal to marry him; when he knows it does not, he will wonder only why I told him anything.”

”He will ask you to take time----”

”No, he will ask me to put on my wedding-dress. You must not think anything else possible.”

”So be it, then,” Gavin said firmly.

”Yes, it will be better so,” Babbie answered, and then, seeing him misunderstand her meaning, exclaimed reproachfully, ”I was not thinking of myself. In the time to come, whatever be my lot, I shall have the one consolation, that this is best for you. Think of your mother.”

”She will love you,” Gavin said, ”when I tell her of you.”

”Yes,” said Babbie, wringing her hands; ”she will almost love me, but for what? For not marrying you. That is the only reason any one in Thrums will have for wis.h.i.+ng me well.”

”No others,” Gavin answered, ”will ever know why I remained unmarried.”

”Will you never marry?” Babbie asked, exultingly. ”Ah!” she cried, ashamed, ”but you must.”

”Never.”

Well, many a man and many a woman has made that vow in similar circ.u.mstances, and not all have kept it. But shall we who are old smile cynically at the brief and burning pa.s.sion of the young? ”The day,” you say, ”will come when--” Good sir, hold your peace. Their agony was great and now is dead, and, maybe, they have forgotten where it lies buried; but dare you answer lightly when I ask you which of these things is saddest?

Babbie believed his ”Never,” and, doubtless, thought no worse of him for it; but she saw no way of comforting him save by disparagement of herself.

”You must think of your congregation,” she said. ”A minister with a gypsy wife----”

”Would have knocked them about with a flail,” Gavin interposed, showing his teeth at the thought of the precentor, ”until they did her reverence.”

She shook her head, and told him of her meeting with Micah Dow. It silenced him; not, however, on account of its pathos, as she thought, but because it interpreted the riddle of Rob's behavior.

”Nevertheless,” he said ultimately, ”my duty is not to do what is right in my people's eyes, but what seems right in my own.”

Babbie had not heard him.

”I saw a face at the window just now,” she whispered, drawing closer to him.

”There was no face there; the very thought of Rob Dow raises him before you,” Gavin answered rea.s.suringly, though Rob was nearer at that moment than either of them thought.

”I must go away at once,” she said, still with her eyes on the window.

”No, no, you shall not come or stay with me; it is you who are in danger.”

”Do not fear for me.”

”I must, if you will not. Before you came in, did I not hear you speak of a meeting you had to attend to-night?”

”My pray--” His teeth met on the word; so abruptly did it conjure up the forgotten prayer-meeting that before the shock could reach his mind he stood motionless, listening for the bell. For one instant all that had taken place since he last heard it might have happened between two of its tinkles; Babbie pa.s.sed from before him like a figure in a panorama, and he saw, instead, a congregation in their pews.